"Nebraska lawmakers approve lethal injection bill"

The title of this post is the headline of this local article sent my way by a helpful reader.  Here are the specifics:

Nebraska lawmakers approved a bill Thursday that’s designed to give the state the legal means to carry out its death penalty. Governor Dave Heineman signed the bill on Thursday afternoon.

The bill (LB36) would change the state’s method of execution from electrocution to lethal injection. It passed 34-12; three senators didn’t vote.

Nebraska has been without a means of execution since February 2008, when the state Supreme Court ruled the electric chair was unconstitutional because it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Nebraska was the only state with electrocution as its sole means of execution. There are 11 men on Nebraska’s death row; the last execution was in 1997....

The Nebraska bill was modeled on a Kentucky law that withstood the scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court. The bill doesn’t lay out a procedure for how the death penalty will be carried out. According to the bill, the Department of Correctional Services would be responsible for creating and maintaining execution protocol.